Huan Soontaree is a Thai riverside restaurant in Chiang Mai, a few kilometers North of the Old City. It serves mainly, but not exclusively, Northern dishes. The owner is Soontaree Vechanont, a folk singer that quickly rose to celebrity in the late 70s thanks to the song “Ka Jao Pen Sao Chiang Mai”. Her career took a 10-year hiatus when she decided to marry an Australian man and followed him in Australia where she had two children. In 1992, after a divorce, she came back to Chiang Mai and she started a restaurant. Here’s what happened according to a 2005 interview:
Soontaree started a small restaurant in Chiang Mai in 1992 near Kuang Singh Junction to see how her singing would be received by a live audience after a decade’s absence. She was pleasantly surprised to find that far from being forgotten she was drawing quite a crowd. The following year she leased the house which her current restaurant is at and founded Huan Soontaree, singing her favourites every evening to an enraptured crowd.
She and her daughter Lanna Commins sometimes still sing for the guest’s pleasure (usually at 8pm).
The visit
The restaurant has a very large parking lot and is housed in a massive wooden house.
Inside there is a stage for live exhibitions.
Memorabilia of the owner and her family are to be found near the entrance.
I was escorted by the friendly receptionist to a table on a terrace on the river. I guess it was one of the most prized seats, but it came with a downside: mosquitos. Eventually I had to wrestle with one of the scariest mosquito I have ever seen and I had to ask to go inside. I thought I had dodged the bullet but the bitch did bite me before I escaped… I am thankful I just got an irritation and not something worse.
My lychee was promptly delivered.
I chose two of their signature dishes. The first was prawns and quail egg salad. The prawns were neatly laid down with a semi-boiled quail egg on top of each sprinkled with some prawn eggs. I enjoyed the dish.
Then I had a massive dish: a full murrel fish, perfectly cleaned from bones and stuffed with crab and pork meat. It came with a tasty dipping sauce. The skin was crispy and it was truly boneless. Difficult to finish for one person; a very substantial dish.
Finally I tried a dessert, a coconut soup with water chestnuts. The chestnuts were too flavorless for my taste.
The check
The massive dinner cost me 698 THB (21.15 USD). While not in the “super cheap” category, still very good value for money.
I think this restaurant has a good selection of tasty dishes and is certainly worth the short trip from the Old City or Nmman where most visitors tend to stay.
Where in Chiang Mai:
46/1 Wang Singkhum Road.